


Ain't No Rest for the Wicked

by White Aster (white_aster)



Category: Borderlands (Video Games), XCOM (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Animal Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Comrades in Arms, Gen, Gun Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-01-25 05:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21350647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/white_aster/pseuds/White%20Aster
Summary: A squad of ADVENT hybrid soldiers finds themselves on the trigger-happy planet of Pandora with no provisions, no allies, and no intel.  But they have each other, and some pretty kick-ass guns.  And on Pandora, that can make all the difference.  (XCOM2: WotC/Borderlands crack crossover taken seriously)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 15





	1. Ain't No Rest for the Wicked...

**Author's Note:**

> This is specifically based on the XCOM2: War of the Chosen version of the game, along with bits and pieces from the WotC novel Escalation (which, if you are a Skirmisher or hybrid fan, I HIGHLY recommend picking up). I'm also assuming this is about midwayish through Borderlands, as well, and (as canon), Bloodwing is a "he" here, rather than the "she" he becomes in BL2.
> 
> For those of you not familiar with XCOM2 who still want to read, just assume here that the ADVENT soldiers were half-alien/half-humans created by the godlike "Elders" as partially mind-controlled shock troops. They're a little Gray Man-looking around the eyes and aren't used to thinking for themselves. They're cut off from the psionic network here, though, so this unexpected situation is a little...stressful for them.
> 
> EDIT: Updated to fix up some continuity stuff that didn't quite make sense and to flow better with future planned events.

They had stepped into the transport portal expecting to come out in a mid-large city in Oregon and instead...desert. Desert and immediate combat, as they were quickly surrounded by a rough, dirty, armed group of humans that showed absolutely no fear of their ADVENT uniforms or weapons. They ignored Yon's orders to halt, half of them rushing into melee range with no armor at all, shrieking nonsense. The rest jumped into cover behind dusty crates, rusted vehicles, or the balconies of a complicated modular structure stacked close by. 

All of the humans appeared to be armed, and all started shooting as soon as they could unholster their weapons.

The squad didn't even need Yon's shouted, "Cover!" to send them diving for something, anything, between them and the storm of bullets.

"By the Elders," Nisk gasped, pulling and tossing a grenade without even looking (he didn't need to, there were three humans running full-tilt for him, surely he'd hit at least one) then readying his laser rifle and swinging around his cover just in time to vaporize the chest of a masked, heavily-tattooed enemy coming at him with a rusty machete. There was no time to think about how odd the human looked, as there was another coming, then another, and then Nisk had to move to keep from being flanked, and there was really no time to think about anything outside of enemy-target-response and his officer's orders.

It wasn't until they'd killed all the enemies and regrouped that they realized something was wrong.

Yon, of course, was the first, as he requested updates from Command and got nothing in return. Not even static. Just an empty channel, as if their long-range comms weren't configured correctly. Yon tasked Nisk with investigating, but first they swept the compound, making sure there were not any other targets. There were not, oddly. It was as if every one of the humans living here (and it was clear the humans had been living here, though the conditions were squalid) had grabbed a weapon and gleefully joined the fight.

"Have they gone mad?" Millux asked, squatting down by one of the melee units, using the barrel of her rifle to nudge at the unit's weapon. The word "Slashinator" had been clumsily scratched into the blade.

"They are humans," Yon said in answer. "The Elders have warned us what they do to each other, left to their own devices. Look." He pointed, and they looked at the bodies dangling off a rusted spar of metal near the compound's...well, "gate" would be a generous term..."barricaded funnel point" was more accurate. Two of the corpses were dessicated and held together with little but leathery skin, but one was fresh, drained of blood but bloated and writhing with insects.

That partly explained the smell, Nisk realized. He always associated the smell of organic rot and decaying wood and metal with humans and their settlements, but it was nauseatingly strong here. It made him wish for a full-face mask with a breather.

"Disgusting," Millux said, standing and looking at Yon for orders.

Yon's mouth was set in a frown under his helm, and after a long pause, Millux said, "Shall I gain high ground and gather enviro intel, sir?"

"...yes," Yon said, and Millux moved to the structure again, climbing the rickety stairs. Whatever he had been thinking about, Yon dismissed it and looked over at Nisk. "Investigate the long-range comms. Cannibalize equipment here if needed." 

"Yes, sir," Nisk said. 

Yon moved off, toward the compound's entrance, his voice coming over the team channel. "I will check the perimeter." 

Odd, Nisk thought, as he put his comm unit through a diagnostic, that they still had team communications but not long-range capabilities. In a few minutes, he had the diagnostic's answer: satnet error. "Sir, the long-range comms cannot connect to the satnet."

"Reason?"

"Unknown, sir. The satellites must be out of alignment."

"Possible reason?"

Nisk sighed off-channel. It wasn't as if he could check on the satellites, now, could he? He couldn't even see...them....

Nisk stared up into the sky, his jaw falling open. Hot, dry air rushed into his mouth, making him immediately thirsty, but that was a minor concern. "Sir. What is that...structure in the sky?"

Millux, from atop what might be generously called a watchtower, said, "And why is the moon so large? And visible during the day?"

Yon was out of sight, but it took a long time for him to reply. Perhaps he was staring at the incredible sight as well. "Unknown. Rendezvous to Millux's position."

"This structure is unstable," Millux said. "Recommend not placing weight on the same platform at the same time."

"Acknowledged."

A few minutes later, after a climb that left Nisk feeling that "unstable" was not a strong enough word to describe the makeshift structure, he stared out at the surrounding terrain. It was obviously desert, but it looked wrong. He'd been in deserts before, and this just looked _wrong_ for small reasons that all added up to a nagging sense of uneasiness. There were blasted vehicles of unfamiliar make rusting in the sun, oddly shaped spines of metal and rock, and in the distance, what looked remarkably like a huge skeleton from some gargantuan, horned creature, long dead. A pack of large, four-footed creatures scampered across the landscape, smaller creatures in tow. Nisk did not recognize them, either, though he supposed they could be some kind of Lost mutant variant.

It looked like no Wildland that Nisk had ever seen.

Wrong. It was just wrong.

Yon stared at the landscape as well, then stared at the large satellite-like structure in the sky, or perhaps the absurdly large moon behind it, so close that they could see it even though it was full daylight. For a moment it looked as if he might say something about it, but then he just gave orders to drag the bodies beyond the perimeter and set up a rotation of scavenging, watch, and patrol. He assigned himself some duties that normally Nisk or Millux would perform, as their squad was too small in number to truly man this as a garrison on their own. However, his orders had them reinforce their current position for now, which made sense to Nisk. The environment beyond the barricade was desolate, and they could see no other structures that looked more promising.

It wasn't until he was dragging bodies out the front gate that Nisk realized he felt something odd. There was disgust at the humans' degraded state--some of them had even jammed pieces of metal through their own flesh, or tattooed themselves with garish, obscene designs--but there was also...a quaking in his chest, when he looked out at the landscape, at the subtly wrong configuration of the enemies' weapons. At the components of the structure itself and the moon and the slavering, aggressive animals that came to feed off the bodies, and even the smell of the dirt.

After he'd finished the last of his disposal duties, he fumbled a fluid packet out of his storage pouch with shaking hands. It wasn't just thirst that made him tremble.

He was afraid, he realized. He was unsure, and he was afraid, and the Elders were silent. Not that they ever spoke to a lowly trooper like him directly, but their...their calm. Their grace. Their reassurance. It was gone.

Nisk felt very, very alone, and when he moved to relieve Millux, he found her breathing deep and hard, her hands gripping her sniper rifle too tightly. She turned to him, whispering, "Can you...can you feel them? The Elders?"

He shook his head. 

"What is going on?"

It wasn't clear whether she meant the Elders' silence or their location or something else, but it didn't really matter. Nisk's answer was the same. He shook his head again. "I don't know."

Millux placed a hand over her chest armor, as if holding something inside. It was the same place where the quaking was inside Nisk's own chest. "I feel wrong," she said. "You, too?"

He nodded. But being close to Millux made it better, somehow, and so he said nothing when she stayed there long past when she should have started her patrol. Later, Yon climbed up after them, stopping a platform below them, and Nisk thought that he would order Millux to resume her duties. But instead he stood there, face as calm as ever but saying nothing. Perhaps--though this was a mutinous thought, Nisk was sure--their officer felt wrong, too. Perhaps being close made it better for him, too.

The wrongness continued to multiply as the day wore on. The sunset did not come when their chronometers said it should. As impossible as it seemed, the sun did not even move in the sky. Yon did not let that alter their schedule, ordering a standard squad rotation when "night" came, of one on resting-alert, one on watch, one sleeping. Nisk slept first, finding the coolest spot he could out of the sun. It helped some, but their armor was too heavy for this climate, and he still had trouble falling asleep. He woke, confused and muzzy-headed, when Yon gripped his shoulder, indicating that his sleep period was over. The sun was still up, shining through the cracks in the structure.

Nisk rose, shaking off his fatigue. "Did...did the sun go down at all, sir?"

"No," Yon said, taking Nisk's place in the shadows.

Nisk wasn't sure what answer he'd actually wanted--even if the sun _had_ gone down while he was sleeping, it would have been at the wrong time, and to come back up before he woke would have been even more inexplicable--but knowing that nothing had changed made this all somehow worse.

Nisk's technician's mind still grasped at the physics of it all. Days and nights were due to planetary motion, and the fact that they had been here over twelve hours and the sun hadn't moved meant.... 

He opened his mouth, unsure if he wanted to actually voice that conclusion to his officer. It was ludicrous. And yet the sun did not lie.

It was difficult to tell when Yon was looking at him, with his eyes hidden in his officer's helm, but it was possible that he was. Perhaps he was waiting to see if Nisk would say anything.

Nisk hesitated, then just nodded and said, "Sir."

As he moved out into the sun, that quaking in his chest nagged at him, and the light and heat beating down on his black armor did not help.

That day, when again there was no sign of any enemies other than the wild animals outside the barricades, Yon took watch and set Millux and Nisk both to scavenging. "To learn as much as we can about these humans," he said, but Nisk suspected it was also to learn as much as they could about this place. By evening, as they ate the last of their ADVENT rations, Yon called them up to the watchtower to hear their reports.

After they gave him the basics--number of guns collected, amount of food and water and equipment found--Yon pulled off his angled officer's helmet and set it aside, rubbing at his eyes. Millux and Nisk just stared at him. Yon hardly ever took off his helm. Partly it was regulations, that officers need to be in constant contact with Command, but partly it was just him...not doing it often. He often even slept with it on.

Yon pulled a fluid pouch out, biting through the access port and sucking down the liquid. Then he took a deep breath, eyes resting on the monstrous skeleton in the distance. "Tell me what you noticed that was odd. What was unexpected. What was missing. Tell me everything."

Millux and Nisk shared a look, as they had throughout the day while uncovering more things that, they quietly agreed, were just _wrong_.

"The guns," Millux said, slowly. "They are mostly kinetic, but not of any make I have seen humans carry before. Some of them look very old, but are too advanced to be human technology. Yet they are not ADVENT, either. I do not recognize their power sources. It is not elerium."

"This...stronghold, as well," Nisk said. "It is rotting, yet unfamiliar. It does not look like typical human crates, bricks, structures. High-density ceramics and polymers, but not of ADVENT design."

"The logos on the materials and on the packaged goods are unfamiliar. What is 'Dahl', 'Atlas', 'Hyperion'?"

"The food and drink we found are packaged as if mass-produced, but not to ADVENT standards."

"The humans we fought...they are all male. If this is a settlement, where are the females? Where are the children?"

"Most of the enemies carried personal technology that I do not recognize."

"They carry physical money in their pockets, and it is not like any I've seen." 

"The communication equipment is live. There are many transmissions, all of them human, all of them apparently on open channels. They...they posture and threaten and converse with each other about things, places, people, groups I do not recognize, all over open channels, as if not afraid who hears them. It...it is as if there is no ADVENT Comm Control here."

"The animals might be mutants...but they do not look like Lost. And they are no alien race I recognize."

"There is no ADVENT equipment anywhere. All humans scavenge our tech as they can, but there is none here. Not comm equipment, not weapons, not clothing, nothing."

"The dirt smells wrong. Like we are walking on rust."

"The large animal skeleton in the distance--"

"The moon--"

"The satellite!"

"The sun--"

"Enough," Yon said, cutting them off, and there was silence.

Such silence. "The Elders," Nisk whispered, taking off his helmet and turning it in his hands. "I...we cannot hear the Elders anymore. Sir, can you hear the Elders?"

Yon swallowed the last of his fluid pouch and dropped it over the railing, but he did not answer. That meant no. "I have noticed all these things. I do not know what they mean."

"Where are we?" Nisk said quietly.

"I do not know. This was not our intended AO."

"Could there have been a malfunction?" Millux asked. "Have we been sent to another of the Elders' worlds?"

"But there are humans," Nisk pointed out. "There would not be humans living like this on any of the colony worlds. And there are no aliens here either. And any colony worlds would still have a satnet that our comm units would detect and sync with."

"But this is not Earth!" Millux said, voice rising, and Nisk had nothing to say to that. She pulled off her own helmet, letting it hang from her hand. "If this is not Earth and not a colony world, then where is it?"

She looked at Nisk, and Nisk looked at Yon. "Unknown," Yon said, eyes still on the beast.

"How long will we be here?"

"Unknown."

"How do we get back?"

"Unknown."

Millux's hands were clenched, one in a fist, one gripping the edge of her helmet so hard that the material creaked. Her voice rose with each sentence, her eyes hard on Yon. Nisk watched her, fascinated. "Then how will we survive? We are out of rations. We are not equipped for this environment. Will we eat the humans' disgusting food? There is not enough here for more than a week or two. Their water tastes like blood, contaminated with the Elders only know what, will we drink that?"

Yon's voice was steady. "We will do what we must to maintain ourselves until--"

"Until what?" Nisk almost started at her actually interrupting their officer. Then something cracked in Millux's helmet under her clenching fingers as she continued, voice demanding. "Is anyone coming for us? Do they even know where we are? Will they get here before we starve, or die of thirst, or are overwhelmed by more of these feral humans?"

Yon turned sharply to face her. "I do not know!" he said, voice rising as well.

Millux's lips twisted into a grimace, her hands twitching, and though her actions had been perilously close to insubordination, she did not back down, her chin rising.

She was afraid, Nisk thought. She was afraid, like he was afraid.

The wind blew, bringing the smell of rot and the sound of a snarling altercation between the beasts by the body pile. The structure under their feet creaked and swayed.

"I do not know," Yon said, in his normal tone of voice, his usual calm returned. "I have no more information than you do, and my knowledge does not prepare me for this situation any more than yours does. There are many unknowns. We will...we will make our best effort, given what we have. Stay alive. Wait for rescue. That is protocol for missions with unforeseen circumstances."

"This environment is hostile, and we are undersupplied," Nisk said quietly. "We could die if we...follow protocol." The words burned, rebellious and insubordinate. Perilously close to being noncompliant.

"We will not die," Yon said, looking over at him, his dark eyes narrowed. "We will persevere, as we always have. We will be instruments of the Elders' will as best we can."

"The Elders are not here!" Millux said, her voice breaking. "Perhaps they have abandoned us here."

Nisk's eyes widened. His words were rebellion, but hers were blasphemy. But Yon just stepped forward, setting his hands on her arms. "Do not lose your faith, Millux."

"How can I have faith in them when I can no longer hear them?"

"Then have faith in me."

Nisk's eyes widened further, staring at Yon. Those words sounded like even worse blasphemy than Millux's.

Yon's voice was strong, though, and he did not back down, either. "I am your officer. It is my responsibility to maintain my unit, to maintain _you_. I will not...I will not let either of you die through my negligence." He looked at Nisk, then back at Millux. "If I must break protocol to ensure our survival, I will break it. These humans survive here. We can as well. We will determine their supply lines. We will travel elsewhere, if needed, to find more resources. We will eat and drink whatever we must to survive. We will kill whatever we must to survive. We will persist, as we always have."

They had woken together, those years ago. Yon had been Nisk's and Millux's officer from the moment he had awoken between them. Yon had kept them alive through many battles. Theirs was one of the few squads Nisk knew of that still had its original personnel. That was Yon's doing. He was a good officer.

"Yes, sir," Nisk murmured.

Millux stared at Yon for a long moment, then nodded, her fists relaxing. "Yes, sir."

Yon nodded, stepping back. "We will assume this is enemy territory and that we face overwhelming odds. Tomorrow, we sweep again, looking for information about the world we are on. Nisk, you will listen to the communications, see if you can discover the location of nearby places. Millux, you will go through the salvage and determine if any of these unfamiliar weapons are superior to our own. Do any of the vehicles function? Are there maps? We will make plans to take whatever is of use with us if we must leave."

"Yes, sir," Nisk and Millux said as one.

"Now go. Millux, sleep. Nisk, rest and eat."

They saluted, then climbed down. Nisk looked up once, when the stairs twisted around so he faced Yon again. The shaking in his chest had eased some, and it eased even more as he saw Yon, still helmetless, scanning the horizon from the watchtower. 

Nisk looked back at his footing and saw Millux watching him from the next flight down. He nodded at her, and she nodded back.

They both, without discussing it, rested and slept without their helmets that evening. It was brighter, but cooler. They fell asleep more easily.

Their spirits raised considerably the next day, when Millux investigated the scavenged weapons. One in particular--painted a virulent green with a garish pattern of red and orange flames--looked like a strange, four-barrelled shotgun but spat, as Millux had Nisk demonstrate, some kind of high-velocity acid pellet that could melt one of the snarling scavenger beasts in seconds. 

Another long-barreled rifle had such an advanced scope and easy action that Millux could drop one of the circling aerial creatures right out of the sky at what must have been a mile away. (That brought its comrades winging toward them in a dive, but she shot those out of the sky as well, the bodies plowing into the dust a hundred meters away. Yon told her to keep the rifle.) 

Millux handed a pistol, unfamiliar but unassuming, to Yon, her lips twitching. "Try this one. Aim at something far away."

The officer sighted on a large lizard sitting on a boulder, then fired. Even Nisk could see that the gun had admirably little recoil for a projectile weapon. The lizard nearly vaporized on impact, not just from the round, but from a slight, wet-sounding explosion that turned it into a red mist. More lizards popped their heads up, hissing and lumbering toward them over the rocks. 

"Keep firing," Millux said, "and when you reach the end of the clip, throw the gun like a grenade."

"...what?" Yon said, firing at the lizards and taking them out with a shot or two each. One, the largest, kept coming, hissing louder, and Nisk realized as it closed on them that it was actually probably as large as Yon, and more heavily plated than the smaller beasts. Nisk moved to a flanking position, reloading his acid shotgun with the strange, bulky ammunition. On Yon's other side, he saw Millux do the same, working the archaic bolt action of the sniper rifle.

Yon's shots continued to take chunks out of the lizard's hide but did not deter it greatly. He paused in his firing, looking at the gun in his hand, and over the lizard's hissing, Nisk could hear a slow beeping. 

"Throw it!" Millux said, dropping to one knee, sighting and firing on the lizard.

Yon threw the pistol, and Nisk watched in fascination as the gun landed at the lizard's feet and exploded, blasting another hole in it, but when he looked back at Yon, the gun was back in his hand. Nisk blinked in confusion, but then fired again as the lizard kept charging, obviously determined to get into melee range. The acid pellets, though, seemed to be eating through its armor. Useful.

The lizard charged over the last few dozen meters, and the squad scattered, moving in concert to stay out of its range and each others' lines of fire. The beast finally fell halfway through another charge, its guts spilling out in a truly repulsive display as one of Yon's explosive rounds punched into a hole in its armor and blew it wide open.

The squad regrouped, breathing hard and sweating, but victorious. Yon looked at their weapons with approval. "Satisfactory." He nodded. "We will persist."

"Incoming," Millux said, backing up to take cover behind a boulder as a plume of dust cresting a ridge on the horizon turned into a vehicle, which rolled to a stop a short distance away.

A rail-thin man with goggles covering most of his face waved. "Yo! Hey there." He stood up in the seat, leaning on one of the crossbars across the vehicle frame. "Uh...you can tell your sniper over there to relax. I'm friendly! See?" He held up his empty hands, though it was hard to miss the massive sniper rifle strapped into the seat next to him. "Believe me, if I'd wanted to take a shot, I would have done it over there, while you were busy with that basilisk. I'm not here to fight, and fair warning, people aimin' guns at me makes my boy nervous." He pointed up, and Nisk glanced up to see a circling dark shadow against the sky. It gave out a piercing, animal cry.

Nisk looked at Yon, who did not give the all-clear and called to the human, "Who are you? State your business."

"Name's Mordecai, and killin' bandits is my business, currently. Looks like you guys beat me to that." He gestured to the compound behind them, and the now much-reduced pile of dead humans. "You after the bounty, or did they just bite off more than they could chew with you three?"

"They attacked us," Yon said.

Mordecai croaked a laugh as he climbed out of the vehicle. Nisk noticed the pistol strapped to his thigh, though the human did not draw attention to it. That he was wearing it openly at all was...well...wrong. "Yeah, bandits do that. Looks like they started it and you finished it, though, which is all that matters. Where you guys headin'?"

"We are..." Yon paused, as if considering. "Lost. Is there a place we could resupply nearby?"

"Yeah, sure. Fyrestone's a few days this way. Over the hill, and you'll hit a road. Once you hit a bandit camp on the left, take a few shots at 'em on the way past, and Fyrestone's right there. You can't miss it." He gestured with one thumb in the direction he'd been heading before veering toward them. "Fyrestone's deserted now, but the vendors still work. Been usin' 'em myself. S'got a bounty board, too, where you can claim the reward for this little cleanup job you did."

"Are you...stationed in Fyrestone?" Yon asked.

"Uh...I head through there pretty regular, yeah. I'm all over the place. Y'know, here and there, playin' all the angles." Mordecai eased his goggles up off his head, revealing dark eyes that watched them all carefully. "Don't recognize your gear. What corp do you guys work for?"

"Corp?"

"You know, corporation." Mordecai waved a hand at them. "You obviously match, and you don't look like any bandits I ever saw."

Yon hesitated. "We are ADVENT."

"Never heard of 'em." The way he was watching them made Nisk uneasy. This man, he knew somehow, was very dangerous.

The circling shadow above cried out, swooping a bit lower, and Mordecai's eyes flicked over toward Millux's position, his voice growing tighter. "Sniper, do not shoot my bird, or this nice, friendly conversation's gonna go bye-bye."

Nisk's eyes were on the human's hand, hanging very, very close to his pistol. Nisk kept the shotgun aimed at the human's chest, as his officer had not indicated that he shouldn't.

"Now, I told you...," Mordecai said in a calm but very controlled voice. "People aimin' guns at me makes Bloodwing nervous. So why don't we deal like whatever passes for civilized people on Pandora, and you all put your guns away. Otherwise, I'm gonna assume you're gonna use 'em, and this is gonna get messy."

"What is Pandora?" Yon sounded like he was frowning. 

Mordecai stared at him, then chuckled. "Pfft, ok, y'know...heh...normally I'd say that was suspicious as hell, but that's just too crazy to be made up. 'What's Pandora?' Seriously, who the fuck are you people?" He squinted a bit, looking them up and down and then appearing to study Yon's face. "Are you aliens? Mutant test subjects? Come on, I've run into a lot of weird shit on this planet. Nothing's gonna surprise me."

"He doesn't know what ADVENT is," Millux murmured into the team channel, in Elderspeech. "He doesn't recognize our gear, or our insignia, or our faces. We are as wrong to him as this place is to us." 

"You know, it's rude to talk about people behind their back," the human said. "And what the fuck language was that, anyway?"

Yon hesitated, then flicked his fingers in a "all-clear" that Nisk slowly complied with, lowering the shotgun. On Yon's other side, Millux stepped fully out from her cover. "We are ADVENT," Yon said. "I do not know why you do not recognize it, but neither do we recognize anything about this place. ADVENT is the government of Earth."

"Earth?" Mordecai's eyebrows went up. "Pfft. Wow, you guys're sticking with the crazy, huh? Ok, cool, cool, I'll roll with it. But hate to tell you, there ain't nothin' on Earth anymore. Maybe like, a thousand years ago, but the corps sucked that tit dry a looong time ago." Mordecai took a few more steps forward, until he was within easy conversation distance. He looked at each of them, eyes lingering on their faces. "And you guys really look like aliens. I mean...seriously. You sure you're not aliens?"

"We are...partly alien. Partly human."

Nisk held his breath. They were not supposed to discuss this with humans. They'd been told over and over that to reveal their faces and their origins would cause panic and fear, that the humans were too primitive-minded to understand.

Mordecai looked neither panicked nor fearful, though his eyebrows did twitch upward. "Kinky. So how'd you get here?"

Yon's hesitations were getting shorter. Perhaps he felt that there was little to be gained from holding back information, especially since the human was providing information of his own. "We were being teleported. This was not where we were supposed to end up."

"Huh." Mordecai scratched behind one ear. "Well, Pandora is what this planet is called. Ring any bells for you?"

Nisk swallowed, his throat dry. They were on the wrong planet. The teleportation had flung them out into space and put them on _the wrong planet._ He supposed he should be happy that it had put them on a planet at all.

Yon shook his head and sighed. "Then we are very far from where we are supposed to be."

"Heh. No shit." Mordecai shook his head, lips quirking. "Sounds like you're well and truly fucked, is what it sounds like." He shook his head again, shrugging. "Well...you guys haven't actually tried to kill me yet, which gets you more points than most of the skag-suckers on this rock. Tell you what...you agree not to shoot me or my boy in the back, and I'll give you a lift to Fyrestone. You guys can get geared up, get paid, figure out where you're goin' from there. Sound cool?"

Yon hesitated, looking to Millux, who just looked back, then at Nisk, who shrugged slightly. They were on the _wrong planet_. Hardly anything they did would make that much worse. It wasn't as if they could get much _further_ from where they were supposed to be. 

Yon nodded. "That would be acceptable, yes."

"Cool. What're your names?"

"I am Officer First Class Yon Hiska. This is Trooper Millux Nor and Trooper Nisk Barrok."

"Pleased to meetcha." Mordecai settled his goggles back on his eyes. "Alien military troops. Gotta admit, that's a new one."

Yon gave orders for Millux and Nisk to gather the useful gear from the "bandit" compound. When they exited the compound again--unidentified tech, extra weapons, and the least disgusting of the food slung in a pack each over their shoulders--Mordecai had driven his vehicle up to the gate and was waiting for them. They packed themselves and the gear in, Yon in the passenger seat and Nisk and Millux in the back. 

"Why don't one of you get on the gun?" Mordecai said as he threw the vehicle in reverse. "I wasn't kidding about givin' the bandits a few shots as we go by. Keeps 'em from gettin' ideas." 

Nisk and Millux looked at each other, then at Yon, who nodded. None of them were rated for heavy machine guns, but Nisk shrugged, climbing over Millux toward the gunner position. How hard could it be?

While he moved, Mordecai cocked his head and looked over at Yon. "So, if you guys aren't from around here, guess you haven't heard about the Vault, have you?"

Yon shook his head. "I know what a vault is. What does this Vault contain?"

Mordecai grinned and laughed, putting the vehicle into gear. "Freedom, my man. Freedom."


	2. Money Don't Grow on Trees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fyrestone: Vending machines, bounties, and a good deal of confusion about bank accounts. 
> 
> _Fyrestone was a slight improvement over the bandit compound. It was still not exactly defensible, but at least it had sturdier structures and more resources. _
> 
> _If one could call vending machines "resources". _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kept holding off posting this because I thought I would get further, but the more I wrote, the more I realized I needed more scenes and that this would make a nice chapter all on its own. So, here we go: yet more mutual culture shock between Mordecai and the squad.

Fyrestone was a slight improvement over the bandit compound. It was still not exactly defensible, but at least it had sturdier structures and more resources. 

If one could call vending machines "resources". It seemed preposterous to order medical supplies or a gun from a machine as if it was rations (how did they keep the guns out of the wrong hands, or for that matter, why and how would they keep a machine in an abandoned town stocked?), but Mordecai treated it as if it was nothing strange. He walked Yon through creating an account on the Commerce Net, then had him claim and confirm the bounty for killing the "Slag" bandit clan. Millux and Nisk stood to the side, half listening and half keeping watch. 

When Mordecai said, "Next?" it took Millux a moment to realize that he was trying to get her or Nisk's attention. When she turned, Mordecai was looking at them, hand outstretched and beckoning.

Millux looked at Nisk, then at Yon. They all had their helmets on again, but she could tell by the tilt of his head and set of his mouth that Yon was just as perplexed. "Sir?" 

"You guys need accounts, too," the human said, still speaking straight to her. It was strange--another thing to add to the list of strange things about this human--as any other human she'd ever encountered would know to speak to the highest ranking officer. "I mean, unless you want him to buy everything for you." Mordecai's lips quirked, as if he found that last funny for some reason.

Millux stared at him for another moment, not understanding. That was exactly what she had expected and she couldn't see why the human expected differently. She glanced over at Nisk, uncertainly. Was she missing something? 

Evidently not, as Nisk just explained, "Yon is our officer."

Mordecai looked at Yon, who just looked back at him, head tilting further in confusion. "O...kay," Mordecai said. "But...I mean, you two need your own cash, right? I'm not kidding, you won't be able to bank any cash without an account."

Millux nodded. "We understand," she said, as the human seemed confused.

Her reassurance did not seem to reassure him. Mordecai pushed his goggles up off his eyes, apparently so he could squint at them better. "You won't be able to save anything, or use a vendor, or..._buy_ anything."

"We do not need to," Millux said. Perhaps that was the confusion, that he did not understand that troopers did not need or spend money like humans did.

Apparently that was it, as Mordecai's surprise was almost comical. "Wh...what do you mean _you don't need to_?" he said.

Nisk and Millux looked at each other and said, nearly in unison, "Yon is our officer."

"Right," Mordecai said, sighing. "I'm thinking that means something different to you and me." He ran a hand over his face. "A'right, if Yon has all the money in his account, then you two can't buy anything without him." He stopped, obviously waiting for their reaction, as if he'd said something they didn't already know.

This conversation was going in circles. Millux looked back at Yon, shrugging. Her officer gamely attempted to take over. "We understand," Yon said. "I am their officer. If resources need to be gathered, through purchase or otherwise, the responsibility for procuring them is mine."

That was obviously not the answer the human had been looking for. "But...what happens when you guys split up?" he asked Yon. "How will they buy anything if you're not there? ...why're you all lookin' at me like that?"

"We are a unit," Yon said, as if to a child. "We only split up on missions, and if they required funds for a mission then...ah. I see. Yes, they will need accounts."

If Yon wished to delegate the task of resource gathering, that made more sense. Nisk was closer and stepped forward, though Mordecai was still staring at Yon, looking perplexed. "Wait. Wait wait wait, I'm not talking about missions. I'm talking about personal accounts. Payday. Weekends, days off.... I mean, ok, you guys're on a mission here, and you're the officer, fine, but from what you told me, you got no way home. What're you going to do, hold onto all the cash you guys make for the whole time you're here? What happens when it's time to pay them? ...no really, why are you _lookin'_ at me like that?"

Yon straightened. "Ah. You mean wages. We are not paid wages," Yon said. "It is not needed." 

Mordecai just stared at him, then turned to stare at Millux and Nisk, as if they might contradict him. "You are fucking kidding me."

Yon said, "Private funds are only needed if you require things that are not provided. On Earth, ADVENT provides everything we need. We do not need private funds. Here, obviously, it is different, but as their officer, I will take responsibility for managing the unit's funds and procuring what we need."

"Wait." Mordecai shook his hands out in front of him. "You're telling me you guys don't get paid. What do you do when you want to buy something, then?"

"ADVENT provides everything we need," Yon repeated.

"O...kay.... What, you don't even get your own money to buy fun stuff?"

"...like what?"

"Like...entertainment? Vids? Mags? Whores 'n booze? I dunno, what do you guys do on your day off?"

Millux and Nisk looked at each other, then looked at Yon. "Day off?" Yon asked.

The human tossed his hands up in the air, obviously frustrated. It was almost comical. "Oh for fuck's..._yes_, day off. As in...when you're not working."

Millux snorted. "Like the humans."

"Yeees," Mordecai said. "Humans do like to...do things other than work sometimes."

Yon shook his head. "We do not require any of that."

Mordecai pulled his goggles off completely, pinching the bridge of his nose. The more confused he was, the further the goggles moved from their place on his eyes, Millux had noticed. He'd been taking them off a lot, since they'd met. "So...you're tellin' me...you don't have days off. You work all the time. And you don't get paid."

"Correct," Yon said, sounding pleased that the human finally seemed to understand.

"And you guys're ruling Earth. That's...great." The tone of Mordecai's voice indicated that he thought it was something other than great, but he also tossed up his hands again and put his goggles back on his forehead. "Ok, fine, whatever, but I stick to my guns here. If Yon holds the bag and then dies, you're all fucked, with no money for anything. Running around without an account is just stupid."

"Sound advice," Yon said, nodding and tilting his head for Nisk to step up to the terminal.

Mordecai looked from Yon to Nisk, tossed up his hands again, and turned to the terminal, "Ok, so, palm here so it can scan you--good--now helmet off, and lean in so it can try to get a retinal scan. It took it forever with Yon because of your freaky eyes--no offense, man, but your eyes are kinda freaky--"

Millux privately thought that the human had no room to talk about "freaky" eyes. She'd always thought human eyes to be tiny and incredibly disturbing, what with all that white around them. Watching a human's eyes roll around in their head was, she and Nisk agreed, slightly nauseating.

While Nisk interacted with the terminal, Millux shifted uneasily, unable to stop thinking about the situation Mordecai's words had conjured. ADVENT had procedures, of course, to account for any of their deaths, but those made assumptions that were no longer valid. It was not as if Millux and Nisk could report to the nearest ADVENT officer on this planet for reassignment. What _were_ they supposed to do if Yon died? Hopefully Yon would have some contingency plans for them.

In the end, Mordecai set each of them up with private accounts and then set Yon as administrator of a shared account that they all could draw from. Yon confused Mordecai again when he set Nisk and Millux's permissions such that they could draw unlimited funds from the shared account. "Um! Iiiif you do that, then either of them could just drain the whole account," Mordecai said.

Yon tilted his head at him. "I understand."

"...okay!" Mordecai raised his hands. "I admit, I am not quite getting what the dynamic is here, but okay, whatever you want."

"Strange human," Millux muttered to Nisk as they headed over to the vending machines.

The bounty they had turned in had netted the unit enough credits to restock on ammunition for their new weapons, buy something that Nisk and Millux agreed could barely be called "food", and buy some of the local medical supplies so that Nisk could begin to determine if they were compatible with their own biology. They investigated the weapons available as well, which was...vaguely intriguing. The major weapons manufacturers on this planet all had different philosophies, focusing on different aspects of their weaponry. There was a bewildering array of ammunition, fire rates, gauges, and configurations available, compared to ADVENT's standard-issue weapons inventory. Millux and Nisk discussed the benefits of higher accuracy vs. damage vs. fire rate, finding that they disagreed on their relevant merits. Not that it mattered, at the moment: it would take several more bounties like the one they had already been paid before they could afford any new equipment.

And, evidently, Yon's pistol was _supposed_ to explode when it needed reloading. That was listed in every "Tediore" gun description as a "feature". There was no information on how it could both explode and teleport back to Yon's hand, fully loaded. Millux was intensely curious about this but yet unsure if she wanted to know.

Yon was still talking to Mordecai by the bounty board by the time they finished, so they fell back on standard procedure, murmured "Securing the perimeter" into the team channel and then did just that. The perimeter was difficult to actually secure, given the configuration of the area, but they at least circled to mark the entrances to the area and then settled into watch stance facing different directions.

This place was not the clean, even perfection of a New City, but they had their officer and a human to protect. That, at least, was familiar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FWIW, I'm starting to get into my own headcanon here about ADVENT and how it treats its hybrid troopers. Millux and Co. obviously think the way ADVENT does things is fine. Mordecai, meanwhile, is filing all this away in his brain under "well that was a freaking weird conversation, and did I just hear what I think I just heard....?"


	3. Bills to Pay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the one hand, Yon learns just exactly how badly they're all screwed. On the other, he makes his first alliance. It almost evens out.

Mordecai's safehouse in Fyrestone was a two-story structure, sturdy and partially fortified. When he said that their squad was welcome to stay there as well, Yon accepted, seeing no reason not to. It was always better to have the safety of numbers, and, so far, Mordecai had seemed competent, if confused on many points. Time would tell whether he was trustworthy, but he'd not yet shown any inclination to attack them, even if they somehow gave him an opportunity.

The building itself was certainly no garrison. The rounded style of it was obviously some sort of mass-produced modular unit, which had, like the other buildings in the town, been adapted and built upon using sheet metal, wood, and what looked like any other building material that had come to hand. This one had had a second floor added, and a sentry lookout on top of that. Once Mordecai unlocked the entrance and disabled the simple but deadly traps set on the door, Yon saw that the inside was spartan and dusty but surprisingly defensible. The first floor entrances and windows were barricaded, with peepholes built in and the side door they came through the only actual entry point. Heavy furniture pocked with bullet holes and the occasional rusty splash of dried blood were positioned to provide funnel points and defensive cover, and Millux and Nisk reported that there were several good lines of sight from the second-story windows and also access to the roof, which had its own cover. Yon stationed Nisk in the hallway between the entry point and the main common area and released Millux to rest.

Mordecai watched them search, clear, and set watch with an air of amusement. "Damn, you guys make me feel safer already."

Yon wasn't sure what to say to that, but took it as a kind of compliment. An ADVENT squad should make anyone guarding their dwelling feel secure. "Do you usually feel unsafe?" Yon asked.

"Heh. This is Pandora, man," Mordecai said, as if that answered the question. He tossed his pack and bedroll into the most defensible corner. "I'm pretty good at taking care of myself, but Bloodwing and I have learned to sleep light." He walked a slow circle around the common room, checking the peepholes overlooking the street for himself. "Don't let the amateurs you ran into fool you. This planet's full of criminals, crazy people, and corporate goons that'd just as soon shoot you as look at you, and they're all armed to the teeth." He paused, gesturing between himself and Yon. "Uh. Present company excluded, of course. For the criminals and crazies part, not the armed to the teeth part. Anyway. What I'm saying is, this place keeps you on your toes, or you get dead really quick."

Yon nodded. "We are used to operating in enemy territory."

"That's good," Mordecai said. "Fyrestone's a pretty safe area, though. All I ever had to keep out was some bandits hopped up on Blitz who thought they could catch me by surprise."

The fact that there was a _bandit camp_ just down the road, filled with drug-addled criminals, and yet the human considered this "pretty safe", said a lot.

Mordecai looked relaxed, though, as he moved to the center of the room and pulled up a few of the floorboards to reveal what looked like a hole. He peered down into it, hand on his pistol, before relaxing and waving Yon over. "Yo. Take a look." Yon walked over and saw that there were a few steps leading down into darkness. "Escape tunnel. Comes out a few buildings over. Just, y'know, in case." He reached down and pulled up a bottle from a box that had been sitting on one of the steps, looking it over before making a pleased noise. "You guys want a drink? I got a few rakk ale stashed in here."

"We cannot drink alcohol," Yon said. Then, a beat later, when he remembered his training, "But thank you."

Mordecai sighed and shook his head, taking out another bottle before moving the boards back into place. "This more of that always-working thing we talked about?"

"No. It is toxic to us."

"Heh." Mordecai shrugged and wiggled a bottle at him. "I never let that stop me."

"It will make us go blind," Yon clarified. "The alcohol reacts differently to our metabolisms than to yours."

Mordecai looked at the bottle in surprise. "...okay." He peered at Yon for a long moment, then shook his head. "Half-aliens. Right. I'd ask what that's like, but I guess you can't really answer that, huh?"

Yon wasn't certain he understood the question, but he shrugged. "We are what we are. Our lives are all we've ever known." 

"Yeah. Not getting paid and no days off, though.... That doesn't bug you? I mean, ok, military ain't freelancing, some stuff's just included, I get that...." Mordecai used the edge of the table to pop the cap off of the bottle. It looked like a move he'd practiced often. "But even military goons get paid."

Mordecai seemed very concerned on this point, though Yon could not see why. "ADVENT does pay us. We serve, and we are provided for in return. The result is the same, it is just more direct than receiving wages."

"Uh...huh." The human frowned but then shrugged, pulling off his goggles, dropping them on the table, and rubbing his hands over his face. He paused as he reached for his bottle again, as if something had occurred to him. "Wait, is it a religious thing? Is ADVENT like a religious order?"

This was such a strange conversation, Yon thought. He had never before had to actually _explain_ ADVENT and the Elders to someone. "In a way," Yon replied. Humans could be strange about religion, so he picked his words carefully. "The Elders are our gods, and the entirety of ADVENT does the Elders' will. There is a religious arm of ADVENT centered on worship, but that is not my squad's mission."

For some reason, that made the human relax some, but not completely. "Oh, OK. That makes more sense, I guess. Kinda," Mordecai replied, brow furrowed. 

On Earth, being an ADVENT officer meant that Yon did not need to worry about what a human thought of him. Here, however, there might be a distinct advantage in cultivating Mordecai's good will. "You look concerned. Is there a problem?" Yon asked.

"No, no, not really. I mean, I'm not a religious man myself--" for some reason Mordecai punctuated that with a wiggle of his beer bottle "--but I'm not gonna get on your case about it. Probably no one else here will, either. I mean...ok, some of 'em will, but some of 'em worship crazy-assed 'gods' that are really huge flaming spiderants, or some voice someone heard while blitzed out of their minds. But it's not like religion is more likely to get you dead than anything else around here."

That was not particularly reassuring. Still, Yon resolved to discuss the Elders as little as possible. It was not as if it was necessary. He was no priest or outreach official, here to convert others. As he'd said, that was not his mission.

Mordecai sipped from his bottle again and waved a hand. "Anyway, who you worship's none of my business. Just trying to figure you guys out. Wondering what you're gonna do next. I mean...ok, let's say that you're not crazy. For the sake of argument, let's say you _did_ come from Earth. Now, I know that's gotta be sometime waaaay in the past. So, what year do you think it is?"

"2025."

"Ha!" Mordecai slapped a hand on the table, as if that was particularly funny. "That in galactic time?"

Yon shook his head. "I do not know what that means."

"In the Earth calendar, you know: 12 months, 365 days to a year, all that?"

"Yes, of course."

Mordecai shook his head, his expression half-smiling but not in a way that looked genuinely amused. "Yeah, ok, so not a thousand years ago. Only like...500 or so."

"Five hundred years," Yon said, doubtfully. The idea was ludicrous. Mordecai had said something similar when they'd met about Earth not being inhabited for a long time. Evidently he was sticking to that story. "What year do _you_ think it is?" he asked. 

"2477," Mordecai said, with no hesitation.

Yon frowned at him, but the man just sat there, not changing his answer. Either he was crazy, or he was very certain he was right.

"You don't believe me," Mordecai said, pulling a chunky device from his belt and pressing a few buttons. "A'right. Here. Let's ask the ECHOnet."

"The comm net here."

"Yeah." Mordecai leaned forward, resting his arms on the table, and Yon could see the screen flickering as he pressed a few more buttons, cursed, pressed a few more, and said. "There. Lookit." He turned it toward Yon so he could see the small screen. Part of it was taken up by what looked to be an advertisement for some kind of drink, but the rest was not so different than an ADVENT datapad, with icons and options. It looked as if Mordecai had opened a settings screen for the device's date and time display. He scrolled through it with a button push. "See, this is Pandora time, what with the long days and all. Then...eh, that's Artemis time, different planet, don't worry 'bout that. Here. Here's galactic time."

The device displayed "9:04pm, June 9, 2477". As he watched, the seconds ticked up until it was 9:05pm.

On the HUD in Yon's helmet display, the clock ticked over to 11:47pm, September 14, 2025.

Obviously, both of these things could not be true at the same time.

Yon stared at the time in the corner of his HUD and then reached up, taking his helmet off and setting it very carefully on the table. He sat back, taking a deep breath, which did not help the unease that was growing in his chest. "That is impossible." 

Mordecai spread his hands. "It is what it is, man. I don't know what to tell you."

Yon pushed himself to his feet, pacing to one of the windows, peering out through one of the peepholes in the barricade to scan the street. Nothing moved. Part of him wished that something would. Battle would be easier than this mental knot he'd found himself in.

His instinct was obviously to trust his own equipment, but his equipment could not account for the teleportation accident any better than he could. And if they had been sent to the wrong point in space for some inexplicable reason, as they obviously had, then why not the wrong point in time as well? If they had jumped forward, skipping centuries, if time had flowed forward without them, then it might explain why humans had now colonized other planets. It would explain some of the some of the technology and weaponry they'd found, which looked even more advanced than ADVENT's.

It did not explain why ADVENT was no longer caretaking the human race. Why had they not come with the humans when they left Earth? Why did Mordecai not even recognize the Elders' names?

Yon turned back to look at Mordecai, and the human was still watching him, chin propped up on one fist. He gave a little shrug, with shoulders and hands.

Yon had only limited experience in determining whether an unknown individual was trustworthy, but his instincts were generally sound. And the fact that Mordecai seemed so very casual about this seemed a point in his favor. Surely someone who was trying to lie to him would be more invested in getting him to believe it.

Yon shook his head and sighed. "When you spoke earlier about Earth, I thought maybe you were mistaken. Or lying. Or crazy.."

Mordecai's lips quirked. "I've been called all those things more than once. But on this? Nah." 

Yon walked back to the table, resting a hand on his helmet and the incorrect time it contained. "I believe you."

For some reason that made Mordecai grin. He watched Yon for a second, before sitting back in his chair. "You know, I thought the same thing about you, that maybe you three were all crazy or something. But for what it's worth, I don't think you're crazy, either. And hell if I know where that leaves you. I mean, you got no way back, do you?"

Yon shook his head as he sat back down at the table. "A miracle from the Elders, perhaps. If we are worthy of one."

"Miracle, huh?" Mordecai reached for his beer again, his smile turning wry. "The Elders hand out a lot of those?"

"...No," Yon admitted, rubbing at the dull pain that was starting behind his left temple. He was built for tactical thought, but this was a much bigger problem, with a much larger set of variables and unknowns, than he'd ever encountered before.

The Elders were gods, so of course they knew what had happened to his squad. But every ADVENT soldier knew that what the Elders knew and what ADVENT did were two different things. The Elders laid their hands on all, but they very rarely turned specific _attention_ to any individual matter. That was often left up to ADVENT's chain of command. Who at this point had to know that something had gone wrong with the teleportation. The question was: would they know what? Would they investigate it...or would they assume that Squad Anatak-98 had been killed? They had stayed on-site for nearly 48 hours and seen no response, so obviously it was not something easily replicated or fixed. 

And if it was _difficult_ to replicate or fix...would ADVENT think it worth the effort? They might think that the squad was dead, and even if they didn't, though Anatak-98 was an excellent unit, it was one of many. No one was irreplaceable. All had worth, but that worth was weighed against other resources, and ADVENT often sacrificed one for the other.

The more Yon thought through this, the more he suspected that a rescue would not be forthcoming. 

"Yeah, gods can be stingy like that," Mordecai said, distracting Yon from his thoughts. Something in Yon's face made him backtrack. "Sorry, sorry, didn't mean to be disrespectful." He cleared his throat. "Anyway...if you got no way home, then...what are you gonna do?"

Yon had no idea. They had satisfied their short term goals: safety, provisions, access to resources, preliminary intel gathering. Beyond that...there was no protocol for this. Yon could see the tentative shape of a long-term strategy, but he was not sure it was the correct approach. Always before, there had been some reassurance that he was making the right decision. The Elders' wisdom, touching even an officer as lowly as he was, helping him to see the correct path. This time he didn't get that same feeling of surety. It was...disconcerting. He felt oddly unsupported, as if a pillar he had always leaned upon was now gone.

"Ensuring our continued survival is our first priority," Yon answered. "Securing shelter and supply lines for food and weapons. Then we will consider how we might rejoin ADVENT."

"Rejoin? I thought you said you had no way back," Mordecai said, brow furrowing.

"We cannot reopen the portal. But it is possible--" not likely, but possible "--that ADVENT can replicate what went wrong, and they may still retrieve us. Or, perhaps we can find some other way back to them. I believe you are telling the truth as you know it, but my mission dictates that we should make every effort to return to the chain of command. That means returning to Earth." Perhaps ADVENT had persisted and still occupied Earth. Perhaps Earth was not "abandoned" as this human thought. Yon couldn't see the Elders approving of humans _forgetting_ them, but who was he to guess?

Mordecai laughed, then froze with the bottle halfway to his mouth. "You...you're serious."

"Yes."

Mordecai sighed. "Ok. Wow. Uh...I have to admire your dedication here. But Yon, dude, there's no ships heading to Earth." Mordecai spread his hands. "There's nothing there anyone wants."

Perhaps that was what the Elders wanted everyone to think. "We will need to hire or commandeer a ship, then," Yon said.

"Commandeer...." Mordecai squeezed his eyes closed and then shook his head. "Ok, you did not strike me as the pirate type, but I'm willing to admit I'm wrong. You got balls, I'll give you that." He peered at Yon steadily over the bottle as he drank again, then set it down and tilting his hands as he leaned across the table. "Tell you what. Chartering a ship will be ridiculously expensive. If you need that kind of money, then you need to be Vault Hunters, 'cause that's the only way you're getting to that kind of cash."

This legendary "Vault" that Mordecai had told him about sounded more legend than reality. When Yon said so, Mordecai, surprisingly, laughed. "Yeah, well, standing still'll get you dead." He shrugged. "It's a gamble, yeah. But it's the biggest gamble going right now, and unless you want to go...I dunno, take over a corporation or something, it's still the only gamble that's gonna net you enough cash to charter a ship to Earth. I'm talking millions of dollars. At least. It's a couple galaxies away, and it ain't an easy trip."

Yon wondered how "not easy" it was, and why, but really, when they were already talking about inter-galactic travel, did it matter? Probably not.

Mordecai gestured, fingers beckoning. "Look. Maybe we can team up, the four of us. Go after the Vault. Four's a good-sized team. Better the team, better the chances of getting where we need to go." Mordecai sat back, arms crossed, grinning. "I was gonna try to convince you anyway, try to spin it as a good idea, but...heh...given that your other idea is 'steal a starship somehow', I honestly think that finding the Vault is the easier, more reasonable plan."

"Hmm." Yon hadn't considered working long-term with Mordecai. Yon's authority as an ADVENT officer meant nothing here, and he could not give Mordecai orders and expect him to follow them. But perhaps Yon could treat him like an allied officer. Who just happened to not have a squad of his own.

It was...a workable plan, he supposed.

Mordecai, perhaps thinking that Yon's silence was suspicion, said, "I know you don't know me from a hole in the ground, but I'm a good shot, and Bloodwing's trained to be all kinds of useful. We can try it out for a bit if you want. Take on one of the shorter jobs on the bounty board, see how we work together. If we get on each other's nerves, no worries. We go our separate ways, no harm, no foul. Whaddaya say?"

Yon wished the Elders were a little less silent. This was the sort of decision that could get his squad killed, if he chose poorly and this human meant them harm. But there was no guidance. No way to know the right answer.

The decision was his, and his alone. The weight was a heavy one, but one he could not put down.

Yon nodded. "That sounds acceptable. We will test out an alliance and then...reassess."

"Great!" Mordecai grinned, reaching out a hand. Yon took it. The handshake felt strange, as Yon had only used the gesture a few times in his life, but Mordecai didn't seem to notice. "Now, I got another beer to drink, and you've probably got a lot of questions, so line 'em up and we'll see how far we get."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took the "alcohol makes hybrids go blind" from the _XCOM2: Escalation_ novel (which, again, if you like Skirmishers/hybrids, I highly recommend you track down and read.) Evidently this was what ADVENT told their hybrid soldiers about alcohol.
> 
> Also, I'm sure eventually that I'll have to pick a different naming convention for the chapter titles other than the BL theme song lyrics, but I'm pretty happy with how it's working out so far....


End file.
